As Seen on “The Charlie Rymer Golf Show”: John Daly is “Ridin’ with Rymer” at TPC Myrtle Beach

Today, I’m at TPC Myrtle Beach with a man that likes to grip it and rip it. I’m Charlie Rymer and this is Riding with Rymer. You know John Daly is coming here to play golf with me today.

Speaker 10 (20:45):

No way.

Charlie Rymer (20:45):

Today, right? He, John Daly is going to be here and he is going to play. I told you so. That’s right.

(20:54):

[inaudible]

John Daly (20:54):

How you doing, buddy?

Charlie Rymer (20:55):

Give me some sugar, Big Daddy. How are you?

John Daly (20:58):

I probably got here before he did. I loaded us up. Got all the carts here.

Charlie Rymer (21:01):

You ready to roll, aren’t you?

John Daly (21:02):

Cleaned all the rains balls? I’m ready. Let’s go.

Charlie Rymer (21:04):

Let’s get out. Never doubt me again. Let’s get after.

John Daly (21:08):

Let’s go baby. Huh?

Charlie Rymer (21:14):

Get some of that, JD.

John Daly (21:16):

How you doing, brother?

Speaker 10 (21:17):

Pleasure to meet you.

Charlie Rymer (21:18):

You never know who you going to run into in Myrtle Beach.

John Daly (21:22):

You’ve been practicing, kid.

Charlie Rymer (21:25):

So John, let’s go down memory lane a little bit and your PGA Championship win. There have been a few days passed between now and then, but when you think about that week winning the PGA Championship, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

John Daly (21:43):

It’s hard to explain. It’s like it didn’t hit me until after. I think just thinking about all the hard work that I put in as a kid and everything. And I mean, going from green to tee, high fiving the fans every hole, and it started on the second round. Crooked Stick was a perfect golf course for me.

Charlie Rymer (22:01):

Right? So let’s move forward a few years winning the open championship St. Andrews old course. The situation with Roca there on 18. When you reflect on that, what comes to top of your mind?

John Daly (22:18):

My biggest dream was to win at St. Andrews. It was the dream of my life in golf. Why would a blue collar guy from America dream about only winning that one? Because their golf courses looked like my nine hole course I played on.

(22:33):

I learned to play on a baseball field. You see all that dirt come up when you get out of the fairways?

Charlie Rymer (22:37):

Yeah.

John Daly (22:38):

It’s thin grass. It was just the ultimate tournament that I’d ever won. And to do it at the home of golf, I remember Nicholas saying it, you’ve won. If you’ve won at St. Andrew’s, you’re like, your golf career is complete. It’s cool. I don’t get the thousands anymore, but I get the ones that have followed my career and can relate. And that means just as much to me as teeing up anywhere else.

Charlie Rymer (23:02):

When fans watch golfers, they think everything is perfect all the time. And I think the average golf fan just doesn’t understand emotionally how challenging this game can be.

John Daly (23:17):

Mostly mentally, physically. I don’t think a fan understands that, okay, shot by shot, day by day. We worry more about other things in our life when we get older, we taking our medicine. Right?

Charlie Rymer (23:28):

You’re right.

John Daly (23:30):

What’s going to hurt you today? I mean, it’s injury after injury after injury, and it’s tough.

Charlie Rymer (23:37):

Yeah. Well, you’re going to make some bogies. You’re going to make some double bogies. And you made bogies and double bogies off and on the golf course. You’ve always been open and honest about what’s going on in your life.

(23:48):

Do you think that’s helped your relationship with the fans? Because fans still to this day, they love them some John Daly.

John Daly (23:54):

Well, I’ve been honest with them and I’ve been honest, you got to be honest with yourself. When you screw up, go ahead and admit you screwed up, man.

Charlie Rymer (24:01):

Yeah.

John Daly (24:01):

Get it out of your soul and your system. And now I’ve had thousands of people come up and say, “Man, I’ve had the same issues you’ve had. I’ve gone through this same thing.” I said, I always tell them, “Don’t be embarrassed to make mistakes in your life.” You just got to try and fix them.

Charlie Rymer (24:15):

You got to go on the next hole, right?

John Daly (24:16):

You got to go on the next hole. You got to just try and fix them. No matter whose heart you’ve broken or them breaking your heart, you got to somehow make amends to them and make amends to yourself first, because that’s the only way you’re going to get anything positive out of life.

Charlie Rymer (24:32):

All right, JD, we got basically an island green here. What do we got?

John Daly (24:35):

2 43.

Charlie Rymer (24:37):

Do you remember the Champions Tour?

John Daly (24:40):

Yeah.

Charlie Rymer (24:40):

Yeah. Let’s move on up a little bit.

John Daly (24:45):

You’re going on up.

(24:45):

Let me get my golf shoes on. There we go. Spikes need to change.

Charlie Rymer (24:54):

I think you got me J.

John Daly (24:55):

Let’s go to the bar.

Charlie Rymer (24:56):

You don’t even have to putt from there.

John Daly (24:57):

Those were two good shots

Charlie Rymer (24:59):

You’re right, they were.

(25:02):

Tell me maybe some things that you’ve done with Make-A-Wish. I know that’s a charity that’s very near and dear to your heart. No one ever talks about the good things that John Daly does.

John Daly (25:11):

Well, I did Make-A-Wish for 14 years. We had a miracle child, Lori, had spinal cancer. She was 16 when I met her, she had a year to live, not even. And she came through it in 2007. They announced her cancer free.

Charlie Rymer (25:24):

And literally throughout the course of your life and career, millions and millions and millions of dollars have been raised to help kids.

John Daly (25:33):

Yeah, I mean, wouldn’t put it this way, it’s more than I’ve won on tour.

Charlie Rymer (25:39):

But before the PGA Championship at Crooked Stick that you were playing in, what was then? I believe that that era was Nike tour. That you won a tournament and you’d spent some time that week over at the orphanage and before you left town, you basically left your whole check for that orphanage and this is before you had a dime. Is that a true story?

John Daly (25:58):

It was actually the first year on tour. It was Ted Grassi and I won his tournament and I gave the check back to Mr. Grassi. I don’t know, it just came out and it felt right and I said, “Just keep it.”

Charlie Rymer (26:11):

Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about your son, little John. We see him every year when you play in the father son in Orlando and got a lot of talent. He’s not a big talker, that’s for sure. But-

John Daly (26:23):

Nah, he’s into it. I mean, he loves it. It’s his very first tournament. He shot like 98 and it was one of his first ones. And he says, “Dad, I got to work on my forearm.” You’re looking at a six-year-old saying, “Dad, I need to work on my forearm.” And that’s when I knew that it was just into his soul and his blood. But he’s getting a lot of attention. He’s been playing great.

Charlie Rymer (26:45):

Have you thought much about how challenging it would be being the son of a legend?

John Daly (26:55):

Well, I ain’t the legend.

Charlie Rymer (26:57):

You’re legend.

John Daly (26:57):

I just tell my boy do everything opposite that I did and you’re going to win a lot of majors.

Charlie Rymer (27:03):

So why don’t you take the tee and I’m just going to blow it by you.

John Daly (27:06):

You should blow it by me. I’m on one leg.

Charlie Rymer (27:11):

Here’s my chance out drive John Daly. Get right, baby. I love this finishing hole here.

John Daly (27:20):

Oh, it’s beautiful.

Charlie Rymer (27:24):

Oh, I like that. JD.

John Daly (27:26):

Be the club, baby. Be the club.

Charlie Rymer (27:30):

Well, you might have got me with a long drive, but I think I might have got you with the approach?

John Daly (27:36):

That’s okay. I’ll make my putt.

(27:40):

Charlie, I can’t thank you enough for having me out TPC Myrtle Beach today, man. Anybody cancels? I’ll do another one with you.

(27:46):

Oh, I’ll give you that both.

Charlie Rymer (27:49):

That’s pretty generous. I’m going to make you putt that one.

John Daly (27:52):

All right, I’ll just do it one handed.

(27:58):

Yeah, so we tied this hole.

Charlie Rymer (27:58):

That really surprised me.

(28:01):

JD, as always, great hanging out with you buddy. Appreciate you coming to TPC Myrtle Beach and hanging out with us and Riding with Rymer.

John Daly (28:08):

I enjoyed it buddy. You’re the best.

Charlie Rymer (28:11):

Let’s get on out here. We got a little rain coming. I’m going to let you buy me a hamburger for lunch.

John Daly (28:15):

I’ll buy you two because it looks like you’ve been eating a lot.

Charlie Rymer (28:19):

I’ll eat two.